And there are curious converts to a weird culte, in which all instinct for attractiveness—all freshness and sparkle—all woman's winsomeness—is to give way to a strange vocation for the unlovely—and this desecration in the name of the Graces!
Shall this gaunt, ill-at-ease, distressed, abashed mixture of mauvaise honte and desperate assertion call itself artistic, and claim cousinship with the artist—who delights in the dainty, the sharp, bright gaiety of beauty?
No!—a thousand times no! Here are no connections of ours.
We will have nothing to do with them.
Forced to seriousness, that emptiness may be hidden, they dare not smile—
While the artist, in fulness of heart and head, is glad, and laughs aloud, and is happy in his strength, and is merry at the pompous pretension—the solemn silliness that surrounds him.
For Art and Joy go together, with bold openness, and high head, and ready hand—fearing naught, and dreading no exposure.
Know, then, all beautiful women, that we are with you. Pay no heed, we pray you, to this outcry of the unbecoming—this last plea for the plain.
It concerns you not.
Your own instinct is near the truth—your own wit far surer guide than the untaught ventures of thick heeled Apollos.